Sluglines - ScreenJSON

The slugline — the scene heading — is one of the few places in screenwriting where formatting is the structure. ScreenJSON decomposes it into parts.

Shape

{
  "no":      14,
  "context": "INT.",
  "setting": "VAULT — SUB-LEVEL 3",
  "time":    "NIGHT",
  "mods":    ["FLASHBACK", "ESTABLISHING"],
  "desc":    { "en": "Low-ceilinged. Emergency lighting." },
  "meta":    {}
}

Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`context`	enum	✓	`I/E`, `INT/EXT`, `EXT/INT`, `INT`, `EXT`, `POV`.
`setting`	string (1–200)	✓	Location text, free-form.
`time`	string	✓	Time-of-day / continuity label. See below.
`no`	integer ≥1	—	Production scene number.
`mods`	string[] unique, each 1–40 chars	—	Additional slugline modifiers — `INTERCUT`, `FLASHBACK`, `ESTABLISHING`, `SAME`, etc.
`desc`	text	—	Language-keyed description.
`meta`	meta	—	Extension.

`time` values

Enumerated (preferred):

DAY · NIGHT · DAWN · DUSK · LATER · MOMENTS LATER · CONTINUOUS ·
MORNING · AFTERNOON · EVENING · THE NEXT DAY

Custom values are allowed, constrained by the pattern:

^[A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9 .'’/-]{1,39}$

Uppercase, 2–40 chars, alphanumeric plus space, period, apostrophe, slash, hyphen.

Rendering

Renderers typically reassemble the slugline into the traditional INT. SETTING - TIME form:

INT. VAULT — SUB-LEVEL 3 - NIGHT

The mods array is rendered inline with a dash separator:

INT. VAULT - NIGHT - FLASHBACK

Language rendering uses the per-scene or per-element lang override if present, otherwise the document root lang.

​Shape

​Fields

​time values

​Rendering

Shape

Fields

`time` values

Rendering